Roosevelt's First Inaugural Address

The Great Depression was the greatest economic crisis in the Western World. The stock market crashed on October 1929, sending Wall Street up in flames. By 1933, the Great Depression reached a high point leaving over thirteen million Americans jobless (“The Great Depression”). Relief and reform measures were soon put into place to lessen the heavy load the Great Depression created, but America would not fully recover until after 1939. Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his first inaugural address as the thirty-second president of the United States on March 4, 1933. The first inaugural address is a monumental speech. America reached a dark place in history and Roosevelt wanted to revive their spirits ("Franklin D. Roosevelt's First Inauguration,
1933"). He convinced Americans not be fearful but to join him in the fight against the economic crisis. "So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." In this famous quote, he utilized pathos by emphasizing fear, the uselessness of it, and the effect it creates. Roosevelt used ethos by establishing plausibility with what he addressed in his speech. He chose to be honest with the conditions America faced and the poor state of the economy. Roosevelt emphasized by letting the people know he understood what they endured because at the time experienced the same situation. He also put in place personal pronouns to create unity with the rest of America because he wanted them to truly understand he stood right by their sides. Roosevelt strategically used variations of sentence length to create a contrast and emphasize his main points of the speech. He placed long, drawn out sentences jam-packed with information throughout its entirety. For example, “Recognition of that falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief the public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.” Then he usually followed with short sentences full of powerful phrases. “This Nation is asking for action, and action now,” has a powerful message behind it considering the circumstances of the time. Roosevelt created the contrast with sentence lengths to pull at the heartstring of the listeners. He also threw in a few caesuras to create dramatic pauses making sure America listened to what he said. Roosevelt utilized parallelism throughout his entire speech to create smooth transitions.
He also used parallelism to emphasize his points. “It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, the State, and the local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities that have a definitely public character.” This is also an example of an anaphora. Roosevelt threaded in allusions and specifically ones to the Bible. “We are stricken by no plague of locusts,” he explained the Great Depression was not God’s doing. Roosevelt mentions, “Yes, the moneychangers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization,” He alluded to the Bible when Jesus threw out the moneychangers to restore the house into a temple of prayer. Roosevelt shows the wrong which started the Great Depression. He conveys a positive attitude towards the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s first inaugural speech conveyed a powerful message to the American people. He used charisma and a positive attitude to instill confidence back into them. He wanted listeners to have faith and be hopeful for the
future.